History shows that Israel is apt to create turmoil for American foreign policy when it doesn’t get its way. After President Barack Obama’s history-making telephone conversation with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, held while Rouhani was en…
Category: Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, D.C.-based author, columnist, and self-described investigative journalist specializing in intelligence and international affairs. He has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CounterPunch, CorpWatch, Multinational Monitor, CovertAction Quarterly, In These Times, and The American Conservative. His columns have appeared in The Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Sacramento Bee, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among others. He is the author of the blog Wayne Madsen Report.
The attack by a cadre of Islamist Al Shabaab gunmen on the Israeli-owned Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi has focused attention, once again, on American and British links to Muslim terrorist groups, from Al Nusra…
The UN in Geneva has released its long-awaited report on the use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21.The UN concluded: 1. Sarin gas was used in the attack. 2. The attack used at least two surface-to-surface rockets 3. One of the warheads containing sarin held 56 liters of the deadly chemical. The UN report did not assign blame for the attack nor was assigning blame in the charter of the team of forensic investigators. However, France and the United States immediately used the report to blame Syria for the attack. Cited as evidence were the two rockets used: an M14 artillery rocket with Cyrillic markings and a 330-millimeter rocket of unknown origin. The UN report stated that the evidence found in rebel-controlled territory outside of Damascus could have been manipulated by the rebels or forces allied with the rebels.
The rebels also claim that it was Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the chief of Saudi intelligence who arranged for the provision of the sarin nerve gas to the rebels. There is little doubt that Syrian rebels, including the Al Qaeda affiliate, the Jabhat Al Nusra, have been in possession of chemical weapons in Syria and have used these weapons against civilians and Syrian government forces. The U.S. intelligence that Syrian forces used chemical weapons has, according to CBS News, been has been rated as «low to moderate» confidence, hardly believable enough for America to launch an attack on Syria. The Russian government has provided a 100-page report to the United Nations showing that Syrian rebels conducted a chemical attack on Khan al-Assal in northern Syria on March 19.
President George W. Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove once infamously said of the United States under Bush, «We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality». And the reality created…
U.S. President Barack Obama signaled through his press secretary Jay Carney that he would be discussing the recent cancellation by the United States of Obama’s Moscow summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama’s press conference, meant to clear the air on U.S.-Russian relations and U.S. intelligence mass surveillance of private communications, left more questions than answers. Obama’s answers to press questions were all over the map, confusing, and at times, deceptive… Obama’s decision to nix the Moscow meeting prior to attending the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg was said to be a result of Russia’s decision to grant temporary political asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The Obama administration’s «Asia Pivot» is playing out in earnest in joint U.S.-Indian-Israeli intelligence operations in the Himalayan region. The actions by the three cooperative nations’ intelligence agencies are aimed at limiting Chinese influence here….
In many ways, National Security Agencywhistleblower Edward Snowden is more wanted by the U.S. government than was Osama Bin Laden just six months after the 9/11 attack on the United States. President George W. Bush said…
President Barack Obama has met his unlikely match in a former Army Special Forces recruit-turned CIA technician-turned National Security Agency contractor. Obama has issued what amounts to an «all-points-bulletin» for Edward Snowden who, in May, left his…
Observers of Middle East politics have often said allegiances in the region shift as fast as the desert sands. And nothing substantiates that metaphor as much as the relationship between Israel and Turkey that went from warm…